Technology

Around 30 million children worldwide are denied education because of conflict. Many have fled war and have no, or limited, access to education. Others live in areas where it's too dangerous to attend school or where conflict has ravaged infrastructure. UNICEF's Global Innovation Center about the possibilities and pitfalls of using digital technology to educate child refugees.#mediadev: How do you think digital technologies could contribute to overcoming the challenges of making education accessible to refugees?Would you say that access to education is the most important thing that digital technologies can provide? It is one of the main needs but definitely not the only one. Aside from access, there are great projects ... using digital resources to integrate things like psychosocial support and life skills into educational resources to meet some of the additional needs refugees may have. UNICEF, for example, partners with an organization called War Child Holland on the project Can't … [Read more...] about How technology can help educate child refugees

We have all seen the pictures: Refugees who lost everything, but their clothes - and their mobile phones. Often when they get off the boat in Europe the first question is: "Where can I find water?" The second right afterwards: "Where can I find wifi?" Clinging to their mobile phones is crucial for surviving on the journey to Europe: To find the next water source or shelter, communicate with the human trafficker who promises the way out of misery and a path to a better place, to stay in touch with the family left behind and tell them that you are alive and well. The number of people fleeing war, violence and prosecution is higher today than at any time since the Second World War. Today, there are 250 million migrants worldwide. 60 million refugees have fled their home country or are internally displaced, according to estimates from the World Bank and UNHCR. The actual numbers might well be higher. Most of the migrants carry a mobile phone, at least 60 percent a smart phone with the … [Read more...] about How technology can change the refugee crisis

In a landmark decision on Monday , Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave researchers approval to conduct gene editing experiments on human embryos. Scientists will not be creating babies, with the modified embryos destroyed after seven days. The goal, researchers say of the work, is to better understand human development in a bid to improve fertility treatments and prevent miscarriages. DW spoke with Harvard Medical School professor and director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital, George Daley, following the announcement. DW: Professor Daley, what are scientists hoping to achieve with the gene editing research which was given the go-ahead on Monday in the UK? Professor Daley: Gene editing is a very powerful technique which allows us to manipulate genes, knock them out, alter their sequences. And by doing that in the early human embryo, you can reveal lots of important information about how embryos develop. We typically … [Read more...] about Human gene editing: ‘There is tremendous promise for this powerful technology’

Dear Mr. Musk, you've done well. No doubt. Launching the first-ever recycled orbital-class rocket, one of your Falcon 9s, and achieving another return landing on an ocean platform is a true feat. You even put a communications satellite in orbit. But being the churlish sort, I can't help but want to play devil's advocate. There are, you see, a few things I'd like you and the rest of the global space industry to consider. First, let's put this "revolutionary" event into perspective: In case other mere mortals, such as me, are wondering: reusable or recycled rockets are not the Holy Grail of space exploration. Sure, the technology will contribute to future missions, but it's a fraction of what we need to know. This is the first successful launch of a recycled rocket. So you've completed step one. But as with every other scientific endeavor, this needs to be replicated. Repeated, and repeated again until proven beyond doubt. You, your company, and your competitors, be they Blue Origin, … [Read more...] about Opinion: SpaceX should reveal its reusable rocket technology for peer review

On a flyspeck of an island in the Caribbean Ocean, local fishermen did not need reams of data to understand that fish stocks were in decline. Big fish had become a less common sight, and productive coral reefs and nearshore fisheries no longer teemed with marine life. Faced with that realization, government officials and inhabitants of the former British colony of Barbuda decided to take action. They enlisted the help of the nonprofit Waitt Institute, which plays a leading role in an environmental project called the #link:http://waittinstitute.org:Blue Halo Initiative#. Led by Waitt's executive director Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, its motto is to "use the ocean without using it up." "Old timers called the ocean their supermarket," Johnson told Global Ideas. But with stocks dwindling, in 2013 the residents of Barbuda joined Blue Halo for a series of meetings aimed at coming up with a fisheries management program. One of the priorities was to set aside ecologically sensitive areas, such … [Read more...] about From cell phones to drones: how technology is helping conservation

California governor Jerry Brown met with Chinese leaders on Tuesday in Beijing and signed a memorandum of understanding to develop more green technology and reduce greenhouse emissions. The agreement builds on subnational pacts Brown signed with officials in Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces earlier this week. "I have proposed that California will cut its greenhouse gases 40 per cent below 1990 levels and that we'll have 50 per cent of our electricity from renewables," Brown told President Xi Jinping in a 45-minute meeting. "To keep that goal, we need a very close partnership with China - with your businesses, with your provinces, with your universities," Brown said. "Nobody can stay on the sidelines. We can't afford any dropouts in the tremendous human challenge to make the transition to a sustainable future," Brown said during a green energy conference in Beijing. "Disaster still looms and we've got to make the turn." US leaving Paris The … [Read more...] about US state of California signs accord with China for green technology development

How do you go from space technology - in this case a machine built for Europe's Rosetta mission to analyze Comet 67P - to using that same technology to detect bedbugs in hotels or "sniffing" cancer? Well, my background is as an analytical chemist, so I'm used to working in laboratories, building systems to answer a scientific question. And going into space is no different. You have a scientific question. You look at what resources you do and don't have, the budgets you're working with, and while money is not usually an issue in space, it tends to be the size and volume, the mass, the power and energy budget, the temperatures you have to work under, shock and vibration - on a rocket there are really bad vibration and shock loads. And to answer those questions you have to build a multidisciplinary team of people. You can't just have chemists or physicists, you have to have a mixture, including engineers and software engineers. So when you come to look at terrestrial challenges, … [Read more...] about Of comets and canines: transferring technology from space to ‘sniff’ out cancer

Digital technologies have created many new challenges for media development. In particular, the range of possibilities provided by social media, mobile phones and online services are unprecedented in media history. Technically, people can have global access to information. The amount of information available to the masses is incomprehensible. At the same time, Internet security and monopolistic structures have created new dangers to freedom of speech and access to information.Social media The data provided in these applications is no longer private and can become compromised. There is also the contentious situation of social media platforms, such as Facebook, becoming the only avenue for access to the Internet in the Global South, which raises the question how free and impartial access to information will become.Follow the Money in Nigeria uses Twitter and Facebook to raise awareness about government grants that have not been disbursed to rural communities. Then they create online … [Read more...] about Using digital technologies for freedom of expression

Ahmed Mansoor is a human rights defender from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who was arrested in March. Mansoor has allegedly been subjected to years of cyberattacks through surveillance software and tools sold to the UAE by European companies including FinFisher from Germany and the Italian HackingTeam. Mansoor, the recipient of the 2015 Martin Ennals Award, an annual prize for human rights defenders, remains imprisoned. Unfortunately he is not alone. Many other cases, perhaps lesser known but just as important, highlight the great risks faced by human rights defenders and activists around the world. These activists are often imprisoned, harassed or forced to flee because of the critical role that intrusive technology plays in enabling such abuses. This is no longer an issue that can be ignored. Technology's role When we speak of freedom of expression today we have to also talk about technology. Much of modern journalism and activism happens online. Blogs, social media and … [Read more...] about Technology must ‘foster, not hinder, free speech’

Google's parent company Alphabet accused lift-sharing business Uber of stealing its technology for self-driving cars in a lawsuit filed in the US on Thursday. The court filing claimed that a former top manager, Anthony Levandowski, at Alphabet's autonomous car subsidiary Waymo stole vital technical data for use in his rival autonomous vehicle business Otto, which he sold to Uber for a reported US$680 million (642 million euros) last year. "Otto and Uber have taken Waymo's intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time and expense of independently developing their own technology," Waymo said in a 28-page San Francisco federal court filing. Levandowski's startup is building big-rig trucks that navigate highways without a human behind the wheel and Levandowski is now overseeing Uber's effort to develop and dispatch cars driven by robots. Waymo called for a trial to stop Otto and Uber from using what it says is patented technology. It also wanted … [Read more...] about Alphabet sues Uber over autonomous car technology